The Slice Funerals Often Bring Out The Best In People
Happy Friday the 13th. Responding to a Slice question, several readers called to say people around here still get dressed up for one thing: their own funerals.
Be like Dick: Every time we watch a “Newhart” rerun we get the urge to rename The Slice “Vermont Today.”
Things 3-year-olds say: Ciarra Klingonsmith noticed a contrail behind an aircraft. “Look,” she said. “That plane scratched the sky.”
And Elizabeth Allbery became concerned when she noticed that a baby robin was shedding a few of its downy feathers. “The baby bird is losing his leaves,” she said.
Finally, it was nap time at day care when a little boy took off his briefs and revealed himself to a girl named Molly. Her response? “Put your underwear on and go to sleep.”
Words to live by.
“Female on the Beach”: That 1955 Joan Crawford crime drama appears on AMC a few times in the next week or so. We’ve never seen it. But that title always cracks us up. And we wonder what the story line would be if a movie with that name were set in the Inland Northwest.
Here are a few possibilities.
1. Kevin Costner plays the leader of a post-apocalyptic band of cliff dwellers who ventures down to the shore of Lake Coeur d’Alene and encounters an Amazonian band of futuristic huckleberry-cultivating nudists in “Female on the Beach.”
2. Way off course, a scouting party from the Lewis and Clark Expedition finds itself at Priest Lake where the intrepid explorers encounter a talking grizzly bear who grants the love-starved men three wishes.
3. In a taut psychological drama, two about-to-split-up gay Spokane men spending a weekend at Lake Pend Oreille find themselves unsettled by their unexpected reactions to a bikini-clad apparition in “Female on the Beach.”
Feel like a number: Seven-year-old Danielle Kjolberg is used to talking to her dad long-distance. But there was some confusion recently when she asked for his number. Her father started giving her the phone number at his motel but Danielle cut him off.
She just wanted to know if he was staying at Super 8 or Motel 6.
Warm-up question: Who holds the Spokane area freestyle record for kissing the most strangers at a wedding reception?
Today’s Slice question: In Spokane, what’s the biggest difference between being a tourist and actually living here?
, DataTimes MEMO: The Slice appears Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Write The Slice at P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210; call (509) 459-5470; fax (509) 459-5098. Was there ever a time when you couldn’t imagine life without National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered”?